


Make It As Right As Rain

by polandspringz



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-16 03:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20186818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polandspringz/pseuds/polandspringz
Summary: Based on the theory that the conflict in the game centers around sports/government corruption-Bede discovers the truth about what Chairman Rose has been doing behind the scenes of the League, and his world comes crashing down around him. Luckily, he has friends to help him pick up the pieces.





	Make It As Right As Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this post](https://polandspringz.tumblr.com/post/186869760888/galar-league-theory) I made about my predictions for the game, since I would love to see something different besides the villains wanting to "liberate" Pokemon again. In this fic, Oleana and Bede are siblings, and Chairman Rose is there father. This was also partially inspired by how much art I saw of Victor and Bede, but none for Gloria and Bede. (also felt like I needed to purify the tag for this game a little)

The muddy, red dirt splashed against Bede’s knees as he collapsed to the ground. Rain sloshed down the sides of his coat, easily running off the surface but dripping down into his sleeves and collar as he reached up to claw at his scalp. The water seeping into his leggings was so cold, shocking his body as hot flashes burned white light behind his eyelids as the world turned to a sickly dark gray.

It was like a hoard of Wheezing had passed through, the sky was so thick, the air turned to smog as he struggled to breathe. He had stumbled away from the city, from the League in a daze. When the argument had exploded in Chairman Rose’s office, when Gloria had burst in with Leon and Hop and began hurling accusations he first thought it was all a big joke. Gloria had just lost twice to the eighth gym in the League, Hop hadn’t been doing so well either, and there were always tabloids spouting lies about his father, and he had laughed at the lot of them for such a pitiful display. Bede had defended Rose by saying that Gloria and Hop were merely trying to blackmail their way through battles they couldn’t win due to their incompetence, but inside he knew that wasn’t true. Leon was standing there, and although he was Hop’s older brother, Bede knew deep down that he wouldn’t stake his position and title on something like this if it was all a lie. Same with Gloria, as Bede watched the girl’s mouth twist into a frown and her recoil behind Hop with hurt at his words, something inside told him things were very wrong.

_“I’m sorry, Bede,” _Leon had said as he produced a pile of evidence, setting the items on Rose’s desk. Copies of photographs and contracts with the man’s signature on it caused Bede to freeze. His eyes skimmed over only a few of the titles, but suddenly all of the puzzle pieces came together in his head.

_“Fa- Chairman…” _Bede corrected as he swallowed the lump in his throat, and turned towards the man beside him slowly, _“None of it is true, is it?”_

When the man had merely laughed and gestured for Oleana to put in a call, Bede was horrified as his sister’s lifeless eyes glazed over the intercom system as she phoned for security.

He was brushing past Gloria and Hop and shoving his way through Leon’s stupid cape as he sprinted for the door. Men in black suits got to him anyway, even as he was racing down the stairs to reach the glass doors underneath the blinking exit sign. They picked him up by the collar of his coat and began to toss him around as he struggled violently in their hold, but then there was the noise of a Pokeball opening and the roar of a familiar Obstagoon and the men were reeling back in pain, dropping him down the stairs and Bede was crawling, scrambling to his feet before his palm was smudging the crystal clean door as he burst through it and out into the rain.

The city was a blur as he charged through it, head tucked as he banged into people, tripped over Pokemon on deliveries, and knocked over displays as he tried to find somewhere, anywhere, away from all the noise and screaming around him. Cars honked as he flew in front of them as lights turned green, someone set their hands on him when he slammed into their back and he tried to move around them swiftly. It was probably a kind person, with nothing but the best intentions as she spoke to him calmly, but instead Bede flailed like a child and ended up slapping her as he broke away and back into the storm of the city.

Eventually, through a long tunnel and over a bridge, he broke through into the Wild Area, the whistling of the wind through all the greenery tumultuous and loud as thunder picked up and Bede sunk down into the path. He didn’t know what to believe. He had spent his entire journey defending his father, deflecting any sort of gossip he heard on the road with a resolute, crushing victory over some pathetic trainers, breaking into fits of word play with reporters when some sketchy magazine broke through to comment about a suspicious event. Shady deals done in a warehouse behind one of the gyms connected to the League, why Rose decided to sponsor him of all trainers, and what he planned to do once he became the next Champion.

He spent his entire life hiding in a big skyscraper, hiding what he was, where he was from, _who_ he was from. When he was given his first Pokemon and showed his strengths to his father in a test Oleana had arranged for him, he felt pride when he was handed the “deal”, a contract and sponsorship that even though it was “strictly business” equalled acknowledgement, pride, love.

Now those hexagons on his back were burning holes through to his heart, scarring him as he inhaled smoke and fought to breathe. His hands fell from his head and instead reached for his throat. He was choking on nothing, his face was covered in sweat and everything was mixing with the rain and falling down into his mouth as he coughed and inhaled and inhaled again as he sucked up more and more but the tight feeling in his chest continue to constrict and bind him.

He felt like he was going to die.

Something dark shot across his vision and then there was a splash by his knees and a hand on his shoulder. Someone was kneeling in front of him and trying to get him to lift his head. The hand on his shoulder was hot, like everything else. Like the air that was swirling around him, the air that he kept shoveling down his throat but instead it piled up like gravel. He continued to pant and gasp and the hand disappeared. Darkness kept jumping in and out of his vision as he blinked the tears away, eyes opening wide in desperation as he continued to suffocate.

There was pain across his neck and then the fire was on his hands. The person was tugging his wrists down and away from his throat, pinning them into his lap as they leaned forward and brushed his hair back causing him to flinch, a caress turning into a strong grip as they jerked his chin up and settled their thumb harshly against his cheek.

Gloria’s warm brown eyes bore into him as she stared him down, mouth set into a thin line. She was never much for words, he was shocked when over an hour ago she had the voice to bite at his father with such an unwavering confidence-filled tone. Now, that he was locked on her, she let go of his face, and gestured.

_Watch me. Follow me, _or something in between. Either way, Bede watched her shut her eyes and open her mouth, sucking in a deep breath. She waited a second, then let it out. She opened her eyes and waited. Bede tried to do the same. When he exhaled, his gaze dropped to his hands, which were tangled together and pinned down by one of her own. He froze up, she loosened her grip, but forced him to look at her again. She breathed in and out again. He followed. She smiled and nodded, beaming as she continued. Slowly, it got easier and easier for Bede, and finally, the air around him became tolerable again.

She let go of his hands finally once he had settled, her forehead pressed against his as they finished their last exercise before she pulled away, fishing through her bag for something. Bede merely watched her curiously, wrapping his arms around himself as the chill of being rain-soaked began to settle in. Gloria’s warm hand came up to touch his again and suddenly he was being pulled to his feet, and her gentle voice-

_(Where had that been when they had been in the office? The one that had always spoke in whispers when they were huddled in caves, been nothing but kind to him even when he brushed her off with curt words and harsh, brutish shoves to any of her meager offerings of food or a listening ear.)_

-Her gentle voice told him they needed to get out of the rain, and she tugged him along, a strong hold on his rough skin, covered by a glove that had been streaked in blood from scratches along his neck.

Interestingly enough, the shelter she chose was one of twinkling stone and red rocky walls, an old minecart resting by the entrance, a few lanterns flickering on the walls. They had fought in this specific cave before, a few times outside of when they ran into one another in the waiting rooms of the stadiums. He liked it better here, in the quietness of the outdoors, the echo of the cave deflecting only the noise of their commands and their Pokemons’ shouts and attacks instead of the voice of authority stumbling in to stop their quarrel, telling them to save it for the big stage. There were no eyes in here, and as Gloria led him away from where the wind and rain still reached inside the cave’s entrance, she sat him down beside a boulder and dug out what she had been holding inside the bag since she found him.

A first aid kit.

She helped him take off his jacket and pulled out a sweatshirt from within her bag, setting it on the ground next to them as she reached forward with a cotton pad dabbed with some antiseptic and reached towards him. She spoke to him quietly, explaining what she was doing, and Bede tilted his head back as she rolled down the collar of his turtleneck, skin tight and waterlogged and beyond constricting even when she lowered it. He stared down at his bloody nails, long but jagged in some places from roughing it a few times on his journey. He must have broke through the skin when he felt like he was choking, but even now his brain couldn’t find any rationale behind that. Was he trying to create new holes for air to pass through? He didn’t even register the pain during the entire event, so it was a stupid, subconscious decision, really, he scoffed.

“It’s not stupid,” Gloria said, as she finished pulling out some bandaids from the kit, and Bede realized he had spoken all of that outloud, “I didn’t… I shouldn’t have done that in front of you. I didn’t know you were in there when we went in but we should have requested a private meeting but we had already come so far and… I’m sorry,” she deflated finally. Bede shook his head.

“I can’t say that- that I’m happy that you did such a thing, but,” he swallowed, looking down at where her hands fidgeted with the wrapping on the bandaid. Her clothes were soaked through too, and her cardigan made from Wooloo wool was beginning to smell, “I’m thankful that you did. I… I always pretended to not know, but I had a feeling and… well I frankly don’t know where to go from here but I’m hoping you might have a better solution to all this than just stopping here.”

He looked up from underneath his wet bangs and she was grinning, and so he smiled back. Granted, it was still more of a smirk than a smile, as she pointed out much to his embarrassment, causing his arms to come up and cover it up, but it continued to grow wider and wider with each giggle from her throat.

After a short while, her brother Victor arrived, looking much more prepared for the rain as he tipped the Corviknight taxi before he stepped inside, shrugging off a poncho and handing over a spare pair of dry clothes for Bede to change into from his bag.

Behind the boulder, he tugged off the layers of water from his body and slunk them onto the cave floor, their weight instantly seeping out into a puddle as he slipped into the warm, clean clothes that were a bit too big or him. Gloria and Victor’s voices mingled over the firelight that spilled orange over the rock and shimmered angst the jewels on the cave walls as he rounded the rock and hung his clothes up to dry on a line they had drawn up over the fire. Gloria was still hanging something on her side, dressed in her damp, smelly clothes still. The rainwater shimmered golden in the glow against her as she turned to him. She was trying to hang his coat up, but the weight of the packs on it kept flipping it over and causing it to tug almost the whole line down.

He stormed over towards her, and gruffly nudged her away.

“You seriously can’t figure out how to take these off? You could have at least emptied them. Or just thrown the whole thing away, I don’t really want to look at it anymore anyway.”

His hands fumbled for a moment before he got the first pack off, letting it fall to the floor roughly before he worked on the ones at the sides. Gloria folded her hands behind her back, and stood beside him.

“But it’s important to you. I couldn’t just do that.”

Bede blinked twice in astonishment, before he turned back as the other two packs fell off and hit the ground.

“Go get changed already, I can take care of this,” he managed to hide his face as a blush spread across it.

Gloria just stepped away and picked up the sweatshirt she had folded on the ground, extending it to him to wear. He took it from her as she scampered off, scooping up her bag before she dashed behind the rock. Bede finished up and managed to lay his coat evenly on the line and buttoned it up a bit to help hold it on. They didn’t have any clothes pins, so it would have to do. Victor gestured for him to sit down and handed him a bottle of water. Once Gloria rounded the rock in her clean, dry clothes too, they broke out the food and began to “feast”, as Victor put it.

There was much to do tomorrow, like Bede had said, they couldn’t just leave everything be now that they had brought it all forward. Throughout the night, when things got quiet, every so often the list of worries would come to the forefront of his mind and he would begin to get worked up again, but each time, Gloria, and sometimes Victor, was there to calm him down, bring him back with a smile or a corny joke or a giggle or some food to give to him or his Pokemon. With Victor’s Wooloo in his lap and Gloria’s Obstagoon guarding near the entrance, Bede watched the firelight crackle and dwindle as they all got ready to rest, and he wondered why for the longest time, he rejected this warmth.

When the cave at last had gone dark and the noise had faded, he pulled up the hood of the sweatshirt and stretched his legs out, careful not to disturb Gloria who was sleeping against his shoulder. Victor stretched a blanket over the three of them and sat down, crossing his arms as both siblings walled him in. Bede leaned his head back against the rock and breathed in the scent of wet earth as the ceiling of the cave disappeared when blackness crept into his vision. This time it was gentle, soothing, and natural as his muscles relaxed and he succumbed to slumber as well.


End file.
